How Do I Uninstall Certain Google Apps?

[CoMoNexus]

I want to uninstall several Google apps that I never use, such as the Hindi and Korean keyboard inputs, and Play Games. Some of them have uninstall buttons, but they come right back with the next update. Others have no uninstall buttons.

A major reason why I got the N4 is to avoid the crapware that handset vendors and mobile operators preinstall. I understand the business reasons why they do that, and I can understand the business reasons why Google would want Play Games on every phone. But I don't see how Google makes more money by forcing every N4 owner to have keyboard inputs for languages they don't use.

 

[Golfdriver97]

I want to uninstall several Google apps that I never use, such as the Hindi and Korean keyboard inputs, and Play Games. Some of them have uninstall buttons, but they come right back with the next update. Others have no uninstall buttons.

A major reason why I got the N4 is to avoid the crapware that handset vendors and mobile operators preinstall. I understand the business reasons why they do that, and I can understand the business reasons why Google would want Play Games on every phone. But I don't see how Google makes more money by forcing every N4 owner to have keyboard inputs for languages they don't use.

You can uninstall the updates in Settings>apps>swipe over to all apps>scroll down to Play Games. When you click on it, you should see the uninstall updates. After clicking on it, you will get pushed back to the list. When you click Games again, you can select disable. When you do that, it will not update, and be removed from the app drawer, but it will still be on the device.

 

[CoMoNexus]

When you do that, it will not update, and be removed from the app drawer, but it will still be on the device.

Thanks, but I need a way to remove it. As long as it's on the phone, it's using storage, and I need that space for other, more important things.

 

[Golfdriver97]

Thanks, but I need a way to remove it. As long as it's on the phone, it's using storage, and I need that space for other, more important things.

Uninstalling the updates should cut it down to single digit MB. Removing the apps is not possible without root access. How much storage do you have? What do you need to store on you device?

 

[CoMoNexus]

How much storage do you have? What do you need to store on you device?

I've got the 16 GB model, and 601 MB is left. I'd like to be able to store more music. I have all of my photos and videos automatically saved to the cloud, so if worse comes to worst, I could delete a bunch of those to free up space.

 

[Golfdriver97]

I've got the 16 GB model, and 601 MB is left. I'd like to be able to store more music. I have all of my photos and videos automatically saved to the cloud, so if worse comes to worst, I could delete a bunch of those to free up space.

How much space do your videos/pictures take up? Go to Settings>Storage to see.

 

[CoMoNexus]

2.44 GB

 

[Golfdriver97]

2.44 GB

OK. So roughly 1/6 (~18%) of your storage is used for video.
Anything else high in usage? Cache?

From a Liquid Nexus 5

 

[acejavelin]

Removing they APK for system apps will not gain you more storage... It is in a different partition and not available for general storage, even if you root and remove them from the system partition, you will not see your storage increase.

You need to figure out what is sucking so much space, most likely an app is misbehaving and using an extreme amount of cache space


Sent from my Nexus 4 using Tapatalk

 

[CoMoNexus]

Apps are consuming the lion's share: 4.1 GB. But note that that figure doesn't always include their content. For example, under Misc, amazonmp3 has an additional 5.4 GB.

Storage is a problem mainly when several apps are updating at once. I'll get an error message that some of them couldn't install because there isn't enough space available. The only way to fix that is to update one or two, restart the phone to clear out the memory and then repeat that process until they're all updated.

 

[Golfdriver97]

Apps are consuming the lion's share: 4.1 GB. But note that that figure doesn't always include their content. For example, under Misc, amazonmp3 has an additional 5.4 GB.

Storage is a problem mainly when several apps are updating at once. I'll get an error message that some of them couldn't install because there isn't enough space available. The only way to fix that is to update one or two, restart the phone to clear out the memory and then repeat that process until they're all updated.

How much music do you have?

From a Liquid Nexus 5

 

[CoMoNexus]

How much music do you have?

It's hard to tell. Audio is listed at just 11.2 MB, but as I said, if I go under Misc, amazonmp3 alone has 5.04 GB. So the Audio list doesn't cover all audio in storage.

 

[Golfdriver97]

It's hard to tell. Audio is listed at just 11.2 MB, but as I said, if I go under Misc, amazonmp3 alone has 5.04 GB. So the Audio list doesn't cover all audio in storage.

Or Amazon stores it in a different location that Android does not recognize.

 

[acejavelin]

It's hard to tell. Audio is listed at just 11.2 MB, but as I said, if I go under Misc, amazonmp3 alone has 5.04 GB. So the Audio list doesn't cover all audio in storage.

Honestly, you only have about 12.95GB of space usable total, you can't increase that without somekind of external device like OTG or cloud storage, and OTG is difficult at best to implement on the N4.

Amazon music is not listed in the general audio stuff as it is skipped my mediaserver due to settings in Amazon MP3. Check your app usage, tap into each one and see what storage it is using or grab an app from the play store to clean the storage (there are lots, Storage Analyzer and DiskUsage may be handy here as well), my guess is you will find an app is using lots of cache or data space and not managing it properly... Amazon (Store/shopping) app used to be notorious for this, Instagram, Youtube, Facebook, and many games use way more storage than you would expect, clean those out and you could gain back some significant space.